How to Be an Author: DISCIPLINE, DEDICATION, DETERMINATION

Over the course of my lifetime I have found numerous ways to procrastinate. In fact, sources familiar with my ability to put aside or ignore completion of an array of activities would contend I’ve raised the implementation of procrastination to an art form. Who am I to argue?

Now, you look at the subheading of this blog: Discipline, Dedication, Determination and ask, “Doesn’t procrastination inhibit, if not decimate and destroy discipline, dedication and determination?” My initial reaction is to say, “Yes.” But, it’s not that simple.

No doubt you’ve heard of writer’s block. It’s not a true illness like alcohol or drug addiction. Unlike those addictions, where one must first admit a problem exists and call it by its rightful name–not I drink too much or experiment with different pharmaceuticals, writers proudly announce when they’ve developed writer’s block. They want their readers to know how much they’ve struggled to produce their literary ramblings. In reality, writer’s block is as phony as those zombies, aliens and mythological creatures they try to pawn off as characters in their books, or the fake news they attempt to shove down the throats of paper and magazine readers and television viewers.

Long before the invention of the computer, writers wrote on paper. First, with implements known as pens and pencils, and later with an instrument called a typewriter, which had keys, kind of like a piano except instead of musical notes they squiggled ink on paper in the form of letters. When a mistake resulted from striking a wrong key, the writer used a sticky liquid known a white-out to cover it up. I know about these phenomena because I lived through this dark period in our history. To avoid the embarrassment of white-out fingers, writers invented an imaginary illness called writer’s block. Meanwhile, their dedication and determination forced them back to the discipline of writing every day.

But sympathy for writers who grew into authors, and some into literary giants, centered on the perception of the writer struggling to find words to write. Editors and publishers recognized the readers’ fascination with the perceived battle each writer faced and helped perpetuate the myth to reap heftier profits. They knew beneath the exterior of sweating brows staring at a cursor flashing on a sea of white, a soul with the dedication, determination and discipline pounded in the chest and onto the page an incessant amount of verbiage for them to revise into an immense depository of accessible literature.

So, yes, I’m inclined to procrastinate. I’m willing to endure the true believers, who worship the writer’s ability to overcome the hysteria of facing down the blank page, as I move ever closer to completion of yet another story. You need not shed tears over the difficult course my life has taken. But, if you must, please feel free to share this blog with a friend–or while you’re at it, share it with a bunch of friends. Don’t procrastinate–DO IT NOW!